Kiko

Roger Camille

(24 May 1936, Egypt - 23 May 2006, Belgium)

Foufi

Roger Camille, better known as Kiko, was born in Héliopolis, Egypt. He made his first cartoons and illustrations for a newspaper from Cairo, and from the late 1950s, he was working for the Egyptian children's magazine Samir. Like many other Levantine inhabitants, he left the country during the Nasser government in the early 1960s.

Cover illustrations for Samir issues from 1959 (#171) and 1961

He stayed in Canada for a short period in 1962-1963 and then settled in Belgium, where he worked in the studio of André Franquin for a while. It was during this period that he developed the little Persian boy 'Foufi' with is flying carpet for an Arabic edition of the Superman comic from Beirut, Lebanon. Most of the scripts for Kiko's weekly Lebanese production were by Franquin.

Foufi from the Arabic edition of the Superman comic (1964)

He began a collaboration with the magazine Spirou in 1964, where he started out creating the series 'Djinn' in cooperation with scriptwriter Jacques Devos. By 1965, Kiko's best-known character, 'Foufi', was also introduced in the pages of Spirou magazine. Foufi's adventures ran until 1979, with a final appearance in 1983, and some stories were collected by Dupuis in two books.

Kiko has also made a lot of art for advertisements during his career. His promotional comics for Milky Way were published in magazines like Tintin in 1969-1971. He focused on commercial art from the 1980s onwards, and was the creator of mascots like the lion 'Max' for Motta ice cream.